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Self in Society Roundup 68
Trump, ICE, crime, libertarians, fertility, fentanyl, and more.
by Ari Armstrong, Copyright © 2026
Trump Watch
Corrupt DOJ: The corrupted DOJ failed to get a grand jury indictment of Democrats, including Jason Crow, who participated in a video making the obvious point that members of the military should not follow illegal orders. This does raise the political status of Crow, a combat vet and all-around decent fellow.
Trump Vs. 9News: Conservatives who say they care about freedom of speech should be outraged. Donald Trump has publicly called for Nexstar to take over TEGNA, owner of 9News in Denver. See the 9News report. Of course, few will acknowledge the obvious, that putting federal regulators in control of business mergers inherently politicizes the process.
Trump Continues to Lie about Peters: Trump claimed that he did not invite Jared Polis to the governors' dinner because Polis "unfairly incarcerated in solitary confinement a 73-year-old cancer stricken woman (A nine year term!), for attempting to fight Democratic Voter Fraud." It's astonishing how many lies Trump can pack into a short statement. Tina Peters was criminally prosecuted by a Republican District Attorney, and found guilty by a jury, and sentenced by a judge, for granting unauthorized access to election machines. No one who has the slightest knowledge of how government works thinks a governor incarcerates people (although Polis has declined to pardon her). Peters is age 70. Her lawyers have claimed that Peters has suffered a recurrence of lung cancer, but I haven't seen verification of that claim. Peters was not placed in solitary. But Trump doesn't actually expect anyone to believe his transparent lies; he expects his followers to pretend to believe them and to act as if they do. Anyway, I guess Trump will invite Polis after all.
Sex Abuse Under MAGA's Nose: It's astonishing to me how much Team MAGA is obsessed with sexual abuse of children—except for where it is actually happening. A recent example from NPR: "A Jan. 6 rioter pardoned by Trump was convicted of sexually abusing children." We all know Trump will face zero political fallout over this from his followers.
White Homeland: New York Times: "A young aide behind social posts that echoed white supremacist messaging will help run social media for the much larger Homeland Security Department." Mostly it's all out in the open!
Election Shenanigans: NPR: "The FBI seizure of Georgia 2020 election ballots relies on debunked claims."
Nationalizing Elections: New York Times: Trump has called to "nationalize" voting. Believe him, urges Kyle Clark. See also Susan Glasser and Judd Legum.
Trump Is a Racist: Which we already knew.
Rauch: "Yes, it's fascism."
Profiteering: David Kirkpatrick: "Trump's profiteering hits $4 billion."
Norberg on Trump: Johan Norberg: "In the United States, it is hard to escape the feeling that President Trump has read my book [Peak Human] in reverse. He speaks of unleashing a new American golden age, but the way in which he is upending many of America's greatest strengths seems designed to move the country straight toward its phase of decline and fall. The attack on trade and immigration is meant to make America less open to outside ideas and innovations."
Red Tape Down: Notes J. D. Tuccille. So that's one good thing.
ICE Watch
Children in Concentration Camps: Propublica rounds up letters from some of the children placed in these camps. Future generations will curse us for such moral depravity.
Warrantless Arrests: Sun: "ICE is violating court order against warrantless arrests in Colorado, lawyers say." More: "Federal Agents Used a Battering Ram to Enter a Minneapolis Home Without Valid Warrant, Video Shows."
ICE Ignores Courts: Seth Klamann: "Federal immigration authorities have repeatedly violated a court order by continuing to 'indiscriminately' arrest people in Colorado without warrants and without first checking if they're likely to flee, attorneys alleged in a new legal filing." See also Reason: "Judge Says ICE Violated Court Orders in 74 Cases."
ICE Lies: 9News: The head of ICE told Congress that Aurora police tipped off gang members about an upcoming raid. "The apartment complex [ICE was targeting] was already empty," he said. But, as Kyle Clark points out, the clearing out of the apartments in question "was a process that had started weeks before [ICE] agents showed up in Aurora," because the city had declared various buildings "a public safety risk." ICE removed its social media posts on the matter following 9News's inquiries, Clark reports. This does, however, point to a huge problem in Aurora: Given the city knew crime was rampant on the properties, why didn't police arrest the criminals rather than force everyone to move out?
Echoes of History: The Sand Creek Massacre Foundation said in a statement: "We are again witnessing the dehumanization of targeted groups of people, the deputizing of an untrained militia given extrajudicial rights to attack civilians, egregious disregard for the rule of law, and the disintegration of human rights."
ICE Aces: Jennifer Brown details two allegations against ICE: Agents used car sirens to impersonate local police, and agents left behind an Ace of Spades on vehicles of occupants ICE seized. "Ace of spades cards are linked historically to racism, including as 'death cards.'"
Schwartz on ICE: Peter Schwartz is among the Objectivists sticking to their principles and calling out injustices: "The entire justification offered for the anti-immigration crusade is a pretext. It is a rationalization to disguise the tribalist hostility toward foreigners, i.e., toward people whose appearance and language are different. It is a rationalization for the goal of making America 'pure' by ridding it of foreigners. How is this tolerated in a country that was once made great by its devotion to the individual’s inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" See also Harry Binswanger and Onkar Ghate.
Pretti's Parents: They remember their son.
Culleton Case: Reason: "Boston Man With Pending Green Card Application Held in ICE Custody for 5 Months: Seamus Culleton was detained despite being married to a U.S. citizen and having a work authorization permit." Again: Cruelty for the sake of cruelty.
Campos Case: NPR: "A Cuban migrant held in solitary confinement at an immigration detention facility in Texas died after guards held him down and he stopped breathing." Related: "In 2025, 32 people died in the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)."
Rahman Testimony: Video. The federal agents who did this are moral monsters who deserve criminal prosecution. Aliya Rahman is an American hero.
Breaking Heads: AP: "Immigrant whose skull was broken in 8 places during ICE arrest says beating was unprovoked."
ICE in Maine: Reason: "Civil rights groups and local media say the federal government mostly swept up people without criminal records, such as asylum seekers, not the 'worst of the worst' that the DHS said it was targeting."
ICE in Minnesota: New York Times: "Dozens of refugees with valid status were sent from Minnesota to Texas to be revetted, prompting a lawsuit. Those released had to pay their way back."
ICE Cruelty: Oren Peleg: "Immigration authorities have weaponized medical neglect to encourage self-deportations."
Short Takes
Immigrants Benefit America: The evidence is clear to anyone not wearing ideological blinders.
Immigrants Boost Health Care: Paper via Cowen: A lot of immigrants enter "the immigrant-intensive health and long-term care sectors," and more immigrants in those fields translates to less death. Also, deporting workers actually hurts "native" real wages long-term and drives up prices.
Debt Up: New York Times: "Federal Debt to Hit Record Levels."
Crime Down: Newsline: "Crime continued to decline in 2025, with homicides down 21% from 2024 and 44% from a peak in 2021." Atlantic: "The Great Crime Decline Is Happening All Across the Country."
Life Expectancy Up: See NPR.
Nucs: NPR: "For the first time in decades, the U.S. and Russia have no limits on nuclear weapons." What could go wrong?
Libertarians Against Trump: Katherine Mangu-Ward's February 9 article for the New York Times, titled, "Libertarians Tried to Warn You about Trump," is raising some eyebrows, including among libertarians and former libertarians who watched much of their movement embrace Trump's MAGA movement. Mangu-Ward writes, "On immigration, speech and trade, Americans are living in a libertarian’s nightmare. Masked federal officials are swarming areas far from the border, shooting American citizens and whisking away children in the name of immigration enforcement. Armed National Guardsmen walk the streets of several cities under the banner of vague emergency mandates to maintain law and order. Legal visa holders are being deported for expressing their opinions on Gaza and Charlie Kirk. Tariffs on China have been set at 10, 20, 54, 145 and 30 percent in just the past few months. TikTok, Intel, U.S. Steel and their ownership have become matters in which the president has taken a personal interest—and threatened dire consequences if his wishes are not taken into account." All that's true, and some libertarians did cry a warning. However, as Shikha Dalmia wrote in 2024, "Faced with Trump, Libertarianism Shrugged." Both things are true. Libertarians and fellow-travelers including Dalmia, Ilya Somin, Walter Olson, and Radly Balko have been loud and consistent critics of Trump. But many other self-identified "libertarians" basically have become cheerleaders for fascism.
Crawford on Progressives and Progress: Jason Crawford: "Progressives used to believe in progress. . . . But instead of just being anti-pollution and anti-war, the new left decided to become anti-technology and anti-growth. That was a mistake."
Iran's Murders: The regime is mass-murdering its own people.
Tabarrok on FDA: Alex T.: "I had high hopes and low expectations that the FDA under the new administration would be less paternalistic and more open to medical freedom. Instead, what we are getting is paternalism with different preferences. In particular, the FDA now appears to have a bizarre anti-vaccine fixation."
Heritage on Family: The (White) Heritage Foundation has out a new paper on "saving the family." ChatGPT summary. People including Jessica Valenti and Logan Davis are worried. My off-the-cuff take: I'm very worried about social engineering whether by left or right. I agree with much of what Heritage says here: Most people do best in a monogamous marriage, and stable families are very good for children. But Heritage is absolutely wrong to reject or degrade other sorts of families, including gay marriage, unmarried but committed partners, and responsible single parents. I do worry about the fertility crisis, but I also worry about women's autonomy and ability to pursue meaningful careers. Part of the answer is for men to step up and be more supportive of their children and of their wives or female partners.
Cowen on Fertility: He thinks the main driver on reduced fertility is simply most women's desire to have one and only one child, in the context of increased availability of birth control, plus generational turnover and "fertility contagion effects." This seems very plausible to me. One issue here: Assuming AI-driven improvements to health care, as people live and work more years, that will somewhat offset reduced fertility. Related: See Lyman Stone's arguments that Romania's pronatalism, although substantially evil, increased fertility at least in the short-run.
Arming Cartels: New York Times: Tens of thousands of .50-caliber rounds seized from Mexican cartels came from a Missouri Army plant, or at least so says Mexico's defense secretary.
Sharia Law: Ilya Somin explains why the "Preserving a Sharia-Free America Act" is stupid and wrong. He writes, "Sharia law is simply a standard term for the religious precepts of the Muslim faith." That said, there are some interpretations of Sharia Law that I think reasonably could be included in immigration evaluations. If someone is on the record as clearly supporting the death penalty for homosexuality or so-called "honor" killings of women, that seems like good grounds to keep the person out.
Autism Diagnoses: Adam Omary: "Between 2000 and 2016, there was a 464 percent increase in diagnoses among children with no significant functional impairment whatsoever. In fact, during the same time period, there was a 20 percent decrease in the prevalence of moderate or severe autism, from 15 to 12 cases per 10,000 children." An obvious issue: "function" depends very much on how an autistic child is treated, not just on the inherent traits of the child.
Teen Social Media Use: Maybe it's not so bad?
Fentanyl Deaths: Stat: Fentanyl deaths are down partly because purity has decreased and many users have switched from injection to smoking. Charles Fain Lehman argues (citing a paper) that the main cause is a "drought" in Chinese sources. More Stat; purity is related to supply.
AI Disruption: Matt Shumer makes the case it's coming soon.